


On the dotted line

by lunasenzanotte



Category: Football RPF
Genre: Alternate Universe, Alternate Universe - Dystopia, Dystopia, Heavy Angst, M/M, Some Plot, Spies & Secret Agents
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-15
Updated: 2018-04-15
Packaged: 2019-04-23 08:17:04
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,202
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14328345
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lunasenzanotte/pseuds/lunasenzanotte
Summary: He knew the moment they banged on his door.





	On the dotted line

**Author's Note:**

  * For [eafay70](https://archiveofourown.org/users/eafay70/gifts).



> Written for a request "signing a document". Only I could do something so evil with such an innocent prompt.

He knew the moment they banged on his door. They didn’t even wait for him to answer. The door flew open, whether they used the universal card or just the good old kick, and the men in grey just poured in. They marched him out, half-asleep and confused. He didn’t resist. They didn’t say a word.

_Perhaps this is the way the world ends_ , he thinks as they are driving through the sleeping town in silence. _In the middle of the night, quietly, because the destroyers don’t have anything to say and we are too scared to speak up. Would a sound change anything?_

_* * *_

The station looks empty. As they walk down the long corridors, no one crosses their way. The offices are quiet as well. Whatever is happening here, only a small circle of people is supposed to know about it. Even the secret police have secrets.

One of the men in grey opens a heavy door. The room behind it is grey as everything around, almost empty. Save for a man in a dark suit sitting at the metal table in the middle of the room, and another two grey figures in the corner of the room. And someone else as well.

Saúl bites his lip to stop himself from saying something he’d regret later. Fernando is looking at him with some strange detachment. He isn’t handcuffed or anything, but his posture looks strangely stiff. 

Saúl doesn’t even notice when the men in grey leave the room, leaving him there with the one in a dark suit, and Fernando, who all of them are pretending not to see. 

“So, Mr. Ñíguez…” the man in the suit begins, and from his tone Saúl can immediately guess what role he is going to play. The good cop, the nice uncle. It doesn’t fool him. “We identified a threat to our country, and we are working on its elimination right now. We hope you could help us with it, as a dutiful citizen should.” 

“What am I accused of?” Saúl interrupts him. He’s certainly not in the mood for propaganda.

The man smiles. “Accused? You aren’t accused of anything, Mr. Ñíguez. We invited you here as a witness.”

“It didn’t look much like an invitation,” Saúl retorts to hide his confusion.

“I apologize for that. We need to keep these things rather private, so if my men were acting somewhat… unfriendly…”

Saúl’s eyes flicker to Fernando. It seems like whatever they did to him, they were much more unfriendly.

“What do you want from me?” he asks.

“We need your testimony,” the man says and opens the file that lies in front of him on the table and that Saúl didn’t notice before. He pulls out a couple of sheets of paper and pushes them towards Saúl together with a pen. “All you have to do is to sign this. Then we’ll drive you home and we’ll all pretend it never happened.”

Saúl takes the pen and looks at the paper, if only to avoid looking at Fernando, but he doesn’t move. 

It’s like the man in the dark suit can read his mind. “No need to act like you don’t know each other,” he says. “We have plenty of material to prove that you do. But if you sign, some of it may… disappear. It will look much different, and trust me, much better for you.”

Saúl’s head starts spinning. He’s sitting there, pen in hand, looking at the document containing the testimony he never gave, words that he didn’t say, that don’t even look like words he would ever say. The events in the document are faintly familiar, they are real, but it’s like reading a fairy-tale featuring him as one of the characters.

He looks at the bottom of the first page. He does remember the night described there. It says he met Fernando and another member of their group at a restaurant, and witnessed Fernando give the man a flash drive with information. They talked about their plans until the man left the restaurant. Saúl tried to persuade Fernando not to go through with the plan. Unsuccessfully. He left after that.

It didn’t happen that way.

Fernando drove him home after that. Saúl wanted to invite him in, but didn’t have the courage. He didn’t try to persuade him not to go through with their plan, not in the restaurant and not in front of his house, during those awkward minutes before he almost ran away and slammed the door shut. He barely told him to be careful. He should have done it the way this man wrote it. Maybe they wouldn’t be here now.

“I’ll give you a moment to read your testimony,” the man says and gets up, clipping Saúl on the shoulder like he wants to encourage him, but it’s more of a warning.

The door closes with a clack and locks automatically. Saúl knows this is a trap, he knows the man is giving them time to talk, most likely he’s watching from somewhere, but he doesn’t care. He jumps up and runs over to Fernando.

Only then he notices his fingers, bloody knuckles, some of them bent at angles that are all wrong. It causes him physical pain to just look at it.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers.

Fernando shakes his head. “It’s not your fault. I wasn’t careful enough. It’s okay.”

Saúl laughs in disbelief. “This?” he says. “This is everything but okay.”

Fernando looks at him somewhat condescendingly. “You can stop it. Sign it.”

“No.”

“They already know everything. About me.”

Saúl gets the hint. _About me, but not the others._ If there’s anything he can do, it’s to save the others, warn them if he can, or let these vultures feed on Fernando for some time and hope the others get a hint. 

He shakes his head. “I can’t. I can’t sell your soul for mine.” 

The battle is lost and he knows it, but he doesn’t think he could live with it on his conscience.

Fernando shifts in the chair and winces slightly. “Sign it, or I’ll falsify your signature.”

Saúl manages a small smile. “With these fingers? I doubt it.”

“I’ll certainly try.”

Saúl closes his eyes briefly, then he reaches up and cups Fernando’s cheek carefully, like he’s afraid of causing him even more pain. “I should have invited you in,” he whispers.

Fernando blinks. “What are you talking about?”

“That night. I should have invited you in. I wanted to, but… I shouldn’t have let you leave. Then you wouldn’t have…”

“Fucked up,” Fernando smiles. “I wish you did, then.”

Saúl takes a deep breath and looks up at him. “Do you really want me to do it?”

“I do,” Fernando says firmly.

Saúl nods. Fernando looks far more determined than he feels, and he’s not the one suffering here. He decides that this last time, he cannot fail him.

* * *

When the door opens again, he’s sitting back in the chair with the pen in his hand.

“Where do I sign?” he asks the man in the dark suit.

The man smiles. He never thought this would end in a different way. “On the dotted line,” he says.


End file.
